natraj wrote:yeah i feel like feeling like it is irrelevant has more to do with whiteness, certainly my black british friends have also been excited about this and it isn't like the topics of racism and colonialism/imperialism are not relevant to uk history

Spoiler:

It even has the line "the sun will never set on Wakanda".

And the museum was a pretty clear lawyer-friendly expy of the British Museum. You definitely need a pretty significant amount of privilege to be oblivious enough not to think the films criticisms of imperialism are relevant to the UK.

natraj wrote:yeah i feel like feeling like it is irrelevant has more to do with whiteness, certainly my black british friends have also been excited about this and it isn't like the topics of racism and colonialism/imperialism are not relevant to uk history

Spoiler:

It even has the line "the sun will never set on Wakanda".

And the museum was a pretty clear lawyer-friendly expy of the British Museum. You definitely need a pretty significant amount of privilege to be oblivious enough not to think the films criticisms of imperialism are relevant to the UK.

Yes, there are bits that are relevant to British history, but the worst excesses of British colonial history center around India, not Africa. And the main racial tension in England has been (at least during my lifetime) between white and Indian/Pakistani (or between English and Irish) - black v white has been a lot more something coming from Hollywood than something present in national news/politics.

Black Panther's a movie about the USA's race politics, the USA's international policies, and specific events in the USA's history. It can be applied more generally, but Oakland is not a part of my political history - use Bradford, or Brixton; make Killmonger ex-SAS rather than ex-CIA; make Wakanda an obscure Indian nation; change the entire cultural framework of the movie (and change up the hero's powers to suit the new setting) and you get something that speaks directly to Britain rather than speaking directly to the US and letting us translate...

Pfhorrest wrote:Where exactly in Thor Ragnarok did they tackle imperialism?

Asgard became leaders of the Nine Realms by conquering them. In other words, the Nine Realms might just as well have been called the Asgardian Empire. Of course, Ragnarok doesn't actually tackle that theme at all, since there's no way to make a joke out of it, and Ragnarok is A COMEDY!!! and can't bring itself to engage with anything serious - the death of Odin, introduction of Hela, and Thor's offhand defeat and loss of his trusty hammer is just setup for a dick joke - but the idea is at least raised in the backstory, even if the movie doesn't engage with it.

rmsgrey wrote:Yes, there are bits that are relevant to British history, but the worst excesses of British colonial history center around India, not Africa.

Um, are you for serious right now? They were bad in different ways, but you can't say it was worse than Africa/Caribbean.

Of course, I have come across people in England who believed there were never any slaves here because of the Magna Carta until I pointed out the existence of the Mansfield Judgment in 1772 which had to explicitly say that once a slave sets foot on English soil they become free.

The Middle Passage and machinations enabling it on either side of the Atlantic was an atrocity. To say it was not in the worst excesses of British colonial history is extremely narrowminded.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

rmsgrey wrote:Yes, there are bits that are relevant to British history, but the worst excesses of British colonial history center around India, not Africa.

Um, are you for serious right now? They were bad in different ways, but you can't say it was worse than Africa/Caribbean.

Of course, I have come across people in England who believed there were never any slaves here because of the Magna Carta until I pointed out the existence of the Mansfield Judgment in 1772 which had to explicitly say that once a slave sets foot on English soil they become free.

The Middle Passage and machinations enabling it on either side of the Atlantic was an atrocity. To say it was not in the worst excesses of British colonial history is extremely narrowminded.

Evidently my education is lacking. Some quick research suggests that slavery has never been legal in England, but that it wasn't explicit that it was illegal until the mid to late 18th century, and it wasn't outlawed throughout British territory until the early 19th century.

Between the efforts of the British education system, and the British media, I'm more aware of British efforts in stopping the slave trade (establishing Sierra Leone, the Royal Navy going on anti-slavery patrols, etc) than of the previous contributions to the slave trade.

rmsgrey wrote:↶Between the efforts of the British education system, and the British media, I'm more aware of British efforts in stopping the slave trade (establishing Sierra Leone, the Royal Navy going on anti-slavery patrols, etc) than of the previous contributions to the slave trade.

I mean, you did at least learn that what became the US was a British colony during most of the 200 years slaves were brought to it, right?

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

rmsgrey wrote:↶Between the efforts of the British education system, and the British media, I'm more aware of British efforts in stopping the slave trade (establishing Sierra Leone, the Royal Navy going on anti-slavery patrols, etc) than of the previous contributions to the slave trade.

I mean, you did at least learn that what became the US was a British colony during most of the 200 years slaves were brought to it, right?

Yes and no - American history wasn't really a feature of the syllabus, so, while I picked up that the eventual US was a British colony (at least by the time they rebelled), the dates of the slave trade didn't come up. My formal education skipped from the Tudors to the Great War, so most of what I know of the 300+ years between the Spanish Armada and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand is self-taught or absorbed from the media.

SecondTalon wrote:Like, I'm pretty sure a lot of the anti-slave trade stuff in the 1800s was less "Slavery is bad" and more "Fuck the rebellious assholes in the colonies"

Moving on

Actually a lot of the campaigning was 'slavery is bad' and talking about the horrors they were having to go through, going and doing town hall meetings and that sort of thing. Apparently people were helped by the terrible treatment of the white missionaries who went out to work with the slaves, because if the planter classes were so bad that they'd beat up white people who were just trying to help slaves find God, then what they were doing to the slaves must be ten times worse. The invention of the sugar beet also helped as Europe was no longer as dependent on cane sugar.

rmsgrey wrote:

Angua wrote:

rmsgrey wrote:Yes, there are bits that are relevant to British history, but the worst excesses of British colonial history center around India, not Africa.

Um, are you for serious right now? They were bad in different ways, but you can't say it was worse than Africa/Caribbean.

Of course, I have come across people in England who believed there were never any slaves here because of the Magna Carta until I pointed out the existence of the Mansfield Judgment in 1772 which had to explicitly say that once a slave sets foot on English soil they become free.

The Middle Passage and machinations enabling it on either side of the Atlantic was an atrocity. To say it was not in the worst excesses of British colonial history is extremely narrowminded.

Evidently my education is lacking. Some quick research suggests that slavery has never been legal in England, but that it wasn't explicit that it was illegal until the mid to late 18th century, and it wasn't outlawed throughout British territory until the early 19th century.

Between the efforts of the British education system, and the British media, I'm more aware of British efforts in stopping the slave trade (establishing Sierra Leone, the Royal Navy going on anti-slavery patrols, etc) than of the previous contributions to the slave trade.

Yeah, the British had the best trade and navy, where exactly did you think all the slaves in the Caribbean and US came from? Also, from the Mansfield judgement in 1772 it then took until 1807 to Abolish the slave trade (ie can't bring slaves from AFrica, can keep the slaves you already have and sell their children), to 1827 to come up with Amelioration (rules for how you should treat your slaves), and then 1834 for the start of Emancipation, where only Antigua decided not to go on with Apprenticeship which had to get cut short and finish in 1838 (which was the finish date for the domestic slaves - the field slaves were meant to keep going until 1840) because that was a terrible system as well.

Needless to say, I did protest at the big deal made in 2007 (I was in the UK for A levels) of 200 years of Abolition when people seemed to be acting as though it was the end of 200 years of slavery.

Like, I know that my history lessons were extremely focused on slavery, but not to be aware that Britain perpetrated the majority of it is pretty horrifying.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

rmsgrey wrote:↶Between the efforts of the British education system, and the British media, I'm more aware of British efforts in stopping the slave trade (establishing Sierra Leone, the Royal Navy going on anti-slavery patrols, etc) than of the previous contributions to the slave trade.

I mean, you did at least learn that what became the US was a British colony during most of the 200 years slaves were brought to it, right?

Yes and no - American history wasn't really a feature of the syllabus, so, while I picked up that the eventual US was a British colony (at least by the time they rebelled), the dates of the slave trade didn't come up. My formal education skipped from the Tudors to the Great War, so most of what I know of the 300+ years between the Spanish Armada and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand is self-taught or absorbed from the media.

it's frankly hilarious that you characterize the british colonization of turtle island as "american history" you realize y'all were doing the colonizing, right? there was no america yet, it was you. it's american history as well since it's how america got started, but it is british history since it was your colonies. and the british were heavily involved with the slave trade. it is completely impossible to divorce the slave trade in the colonies from british commerce, it would have been inconceivable to sustain "american" slavery without british financial interests & backing. it is british history too.but (quite obviously given what you just said) not taught as such since brits are just as keen on glossing over the atrocities they've committed as people in america are. so like i get that you're just learning this but don't characterise it as "we weren't taught american history" just say you weren't taught your own history because that's the truth.

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

I mean, everywhere that speaks English now is an ex-British colony if they aren't still a territory.

It's nice how you basically seemed to ignore the entirety of the slave trade in your history apparently when it was the time that Britain was really getting to grips with consolidating its hold on the world.

Of course, this is what Thor Ragnorok was going on about.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

Don't forget, the very first thing to be mass industrialized was the power loom. For all their rhetoric, the British industrial wealth still depended upon slave labor, and the British factory owners made far more money from slavery than the plantation owners themselves did. That's part of why the North, which had begun to industrialized by the time of the civil war, absolutely was culpable for slavery. During and after the war, Britain turned a bit further eastward in search of dirt cheap cotton...

It still goes on today. Ghana has slave labor on many of its cocoa farms, and while the typical farm owner makes a decent amount of money from slavery, you can bet your bottom that it's chump change compared to the profits Nestle and Mars makes on that.

natraj wrote:it's frankly hilarious that you characterize the british colonization of turtle island as "american history" you realize y'all were doing the colonizing, right? there was no america yet, it was you. it's american history as well since it's how america got started, but it is british history since it was your colonies. and the british were heavily involved with the slave trade. it is completely impossible to divorce the slave trade in the colonies from british commerce, it would have been inconceivable to sustain "american" slavery without british financial interests & backing. it is british history too.but (quite obviously given what you just said) not taught as such since brits are just as keen on glossing over the atrocities they've committed as people in america are. so like i get that you're just learning this but don't characterise it as "we weren't taught american history" just say you weren't taught your own history because that's the truth.

On the other hand, saying that because I wasn't taught "the history of British colonies in the Americas 1600-1800" I wasn't taught British history is false (or at least misleading). Even during that 200 year period, the slave trade was a relatively minor part of British history - in that time, there was a civil war, a restoration of the monarchy, a fire that destroyed a large portion of the capital, a bloodless revolution, a union of two nations, a number of unsuccessful uprisings, assorted wars in Europe, preliminaries to another union of two nations, and the start of the Napoleonic Wars, all of which had more significance to Britain.

Outside of that 200 year period, there's the best part of two millennia of recorded history of Britain, and more if you count the histories of the various places that conquered (parts of) Britain prior to conquest and during the time they ruled Britain.

You could say I wasn't taught all my own history, but that's true of everyone; saying I wasn't taught any of my history is false; saying I wasn't taught significant portions of British history depends on where you put the threshold for significance.

"I wasn't taught American history" is a true statement, and covers the intersection(s) of American and British history; "I wasn't taught British history" is false.

i was giving you the benefit of the doubt before when purportedly the issue was "actually unaware of the slave trade being a part of british@ history" but that's lost now.

yes, i know that everyone is not taught every single detail of all their history. but how you, personally, *choose* to frame that history is still important, and still telling.

the slave trade is british history. there is a longstanding pattern of british people downplaying the atrocities they, specifically, in their role as a brutal colonizing power, inflicted on black and brown people across the world. there is a longstanding pattern of british people, specifically, pretending that chattel slavery was a uniquely american evil, as though it somehow sprung fully formed into existence when the declaration of independence was signed and y'all had nothing to do with it.

when you choose -- and that was a choice you made -- to characterize atrocities britain began and continued for a long time to be heavily complicit in as american, you contribute to this distancing. you add to the ease with which white brits tell themselves (and they persistently tell themselves, as you did in the very post that began this line of conversation), this isn't our problem, we never did and still don't have a part in it, it's an american thing.

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

Yeah, casually saying that the worst of British atrocities had nothing to do with Africa is extremely problematic. Especially in the context of a movie that emphasises just how damaging this was.

And also, clearly the point was that you weren't taught that part of your history. natraj never said that you weren't taught any British history whatsoever, just that you weren't taught that part of your own history, rather than passing it off as American history (or Caribbean history).

Doubling down on this not being your problem because Britain had more important things at the time than a trade that killed 20% of the people it enslaved (just in the Middle Passage alone) is not really a good look. Basically calling it 'insignificant'? Are you for serious????

Tbh, the best response I can make to that is

stupes

Sadly, the subtleties and inflection on that is somewhat lacking when communicating with people who don't use it themselves.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

Relatively minor? Britain was one of the biggest transporters of slaves to the New World, which massively impacted history on 3 if not 4 continents. If that is not enough to be worth mentioning, then logically you should stop learning about ALL of British history because obviously nothing that has ever happened in Britain is worth any mention at all.

Not to be a splitter here, but on terms of importance to history, the inhuman suffering of millions of people is not nearly as important as how the whole thing has impacted the formation of the world since. The slave trade has had an enormous impact on every country in the Americas, and the trade itself weakened Africa considerably in a sort of devils deal and prepared it for the murder-orgy that was Imperialism, and more importantly, was the very source of the raw materials that Britain's industrial wealth sprang from. Even if you ignore the damage done to the rest of the world, the impact it had on JUST Britain alone makes it a critical portion of BRITISH history, to say nothing of the world.

I'm almost morbidly curious as to what you learned about Britain and India...

CorruptUser wrote:Not to be a splitter here, but on terms of importance to history, the inhuman suffering of millions of people is not nearly as important as how the whole thing has impacted the formation of the world since. The slave trade has had an enormous impact on every country in the Americas, and the trade itself weakened Africa considerably in a sort of devils deal and prepared it for the murder-orgy that was Imperialism, and more importantly, was the very source of the raw materials that Britain's industrial wealth sprang from. Even if you ignore the damage done to the rest of the world, the impact it had on JUST Britain alone makes it a critical portion of BRITISH history, to say nothing of the world.

More important than child labour in the coal mines? Or turning an ancient empire into drug addicts in order to keep the tea flowing? Or intercepting the shipments of gold looted from South America by the Spanish?

Just keep digging. Are you really going with intercepting shipments of gold as being more important than the entirety of the Trade Triangle that lasted for over 200 years?

And, to be honest, the slave trade is definitely at least up there with your tea (I mean, fueling a continent's worth of infighting just to get human labour must be at least as bad as drug addiction), and I would argue more important than child labour (which has been pretty ubiquitous throughout human history).

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

rmsgrey wrote:More important than child labour in the coal mines? Or turning an ancient empire into drug addicts in order to keep the tea flowing? Or intercepting the shipments of gold looted from South America by the Spanish?

Just so I'm clear, are you comparing all this to the slave trade? Not trying to get a rise out of you, not accusing you of like, being a slavery apologist or anything, just honestly curious what your position here is.

TaintedDeity wrote:Tainted Deity

suffer-cait wrote:One day I'm gun a go visit weeks and discover they're just a computer in a trashcan at an ice cream shop.

Did the slave trade have a greater historical impact than the opium wars? YES. The opium wars had a moderate impact on the development of one admittedly major country. Slavery had a greater impact on the development of entire continents. Child labor? That was so ubiquitous throughout history that it's kind of an irrelevant point.

Look, the smartest thing you can do right now is just admit you were wrong. It's ok to be wrong. It's not ok to CONTINUE to be wrong.

Angua wrote:↶I'd also like to point out that Africa also contained ancient empires that British imperialism helped destroy.

He apparently managed to "pick up" that the US had been a British colony "by the time they rebelled" (meaning he apparently never figured out it also had been for the 160 or so years before that), I'm gonna go ahead and bet his education was also fairly shaky on Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Sudan), Basutoland (Lesotho), Balleland (Benin), Bechuanaland (Botswana), British East Africa (Kenya), British Somaliland (northern Somalia), British Togoland (eastern Ghana), British Cameroons (split between Nigeria and Cameroon), British Egypt, Khedivate of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt, Kingdom of Egypt, Gambia Colony and Protectorate, Gold Coast (Ghana), Colonial Nigeria, Niger Coast Protectorate, Northern Nigeria Protectorate, Southern Nigeria Protectorate, Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Nyasaland (Malawi), Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate, South Africa, British Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal Colony, South-West Africa (Namibia), Walvis Bay, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Swaziland, Tanganyika Territory (mainland Tanzania), Uganda Protectorate, and the Sultanate of Zanzibar (insular Tanzania).

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Well yeah, not all of those were civilizations the British themselves were the ones to destroy. It's just a snarky copy-paste from Wikipedia's list of British colonies in Africa.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

CorruptUser wrote:Did the slave trade have a greater historical impact than the opium wars? YES. The opium wars had a moderate impact on the development of one admittedly major country. Slavery had a greater impact on the development of entire continents. Child labor? That was so ubiquitous throughout history that it's kind of an irrelevant point.

Look, the smartest thing you can do right now is just admit you were wrong. It's ok to be wrong. It's not ok to CONTINUE to be wrong.

Historical impact on Britain. Sorry, I thought that was clear from context.

Slavery was also depressingly common throughout history.

And, yes, British involvement in the Atlantic slave trade is a black mark in British history. It's not the only black mark, and arguably not the blackest either, depending on how you rank things, but it is a black mark.

The forced movement and dehumanisation of over 1 million people in the name of slavery was not really that common. And again, roughly 20% of slaves going through the Middle Passage died. That's not counting those who died during capture and due to their mistreatment once they were forced into labour.

You are still missing out on how much of a trade impact this had on Britain. Again, it was the Trade Triangle. Cheap goods and weapons manufactured in Britain went to Africa. Slaves went to the Caribbean/US. Sugar, tobacco, and other goods came back to the UK. This economy had a huge effect on Britain. The West and East India companies were extremely powerful in Britain. Statues were made for people who made lots of money and then became philanthropists for the people of Britain.

Your education system apparently thought it was important enough to tell you that you ended it before most other countries (technically, France did first during the revolution but Napoleon squashed that). It was apparently important enough to tell you about the start up of Sierra Leone (which was not actually that successful to be honest). So, they told you about the bits they could be somewhat proud of, but not about the rest of it.

But please, keep digging your hole in how this was not actually that big a deal.

Crabtree's bludgeon: “no set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated”

Angua wrote:The forced movement and dehumanisation of over 1 million3 million people in the name of slavery was not really that common. And again, roughly 20% of slaves going through the Middle Passage died. That's not counting those who died during capture and due to their mistreatment once they were forced into labour.

strikethru and correction mine. still only counting the estimates on how many slaves britain was solely responsible for transporting (but not like their commerce & economy wasn't still bound up with the products of enslaved labor from the spanish portuguese dutch etc. so figuring how much they profited from enslaved people they didn't bring over themselves would be a trickier proposition.)

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

Did you learn about the industrial revolution? The power loom? Just where do you think Britain got the cotton for those looms, to say nothing of the raw materials for other industries which financed the British Empire allowing it to conquer a quarter of the world in the first place. Slave trade had a bigger historical impact on Britain than the Opium Wars did, hun.

Honestly Western Hemisphere slavery possibly had more impact on China, too, considering how the Spanish mined their silver.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome

Its almost like the entire world is and always has been extremely interconnected or something, globalism has always existed, and actions have consequences that will reverberate throughout the future in ways we can't easily predict.

Heh. I could explain how the trans Atlantic slave trade led to the destruction of Poland. Basically, the trans Saharan slave trade stopped, and the Ottomans turned to the Crimeans for slaves, which basically turned eastern Europe into the equivalent hellhole that was late 18th century West coast Africa. This paved the way for the Russians to expand ever westward, and eventually crushed the Crimean Tartars by unleashing the Cossacks in that curious case where the side committing genocide wasn't the most awful side. So yeah, again, the whole world is shaped in weird ways, and yes, the slave trade is a big deal.

The forced movement and dehumanisation of over 1 million people in the name of slavery was not really that common. And again, roughly 20% of slaves going through the Middle Passage died. That's not counting those who died during capture and due to their mistreatment once they were forced into labour.

[...]

But please, keep digging your hole in how this was not actually that big a deal.

Wikipedia has an estimated 15% of slaves dying in the Middle Passage. Also an estimated 75% of all people alive in some form of slavery c. 1800.

Estimates of the economic impact on Great Britain range from "less than 1%" to "at the very most possible, under the most favourable assumptions, and assuming there were absolutely no costs involved, up to 5%" of the economy. Also, during the late 18th century, the Caribbean colonies represented 15% of the market for British manufactured goods.

I can't readily track down figures for the economic impact of coal-mining during the same period, but one statistic I have found estimates that in 1800 coal-production in mainland Britain alone matched global coal-production today, and coal-mining is still a significant part of public consciousness and, while not a live political issue, it's an issue that was live within living memory.

The slave trade was absolutely a big deal for the people involved in it (up to and including the monarchy) but not for the nation as a whole.

rmsgrey wrote:Wikipedia has an estimated 15% of slaves dying in the Middle Passage. Also an estimated 75% of all people alive in some form of slavery c. 1800.

I'm not sure why you're bringing up 'estimated 15%' versus 'roughly 20%'. I think 'roughly' can be taken to imply a margin of error of +/- 5%, so...?

I've also been struggling for several minutes to understand what "estimated 75% of all people alive in some form of slavery c. 1800" means. I tried to find your source from Wikipedia for this, but no luck. I'm highly suspicious regarding this figure, unless by 'some form of slavery', we're talking about 'some form of slavery many times removed from chattel slavery'. And chattel slavery was what Angua was talking about.

rmsgrey wrote:The slave trade was absolutely a big deal for the people involved in it (up to and including the monarchy) but not for the nation as a whole.

Right; that's kind of the point? That the British didn't give sufficient fucks re: their support of chattel slavery. It 'wasn't a big deal' that they were supporting the transport of millions of people as livestock. Certainly not a big enough of a deal to not do it.

The Great Hippo wrote:That the British didn't give sufficient fucks re: their support of chattel slavery. It 'wasn't a big deal' that they were supporting the transport of a million people as livestock. Certainly not a big enough of a deal to stop doing it.

Or at least tell their children this was, like, a thing that happened so they dont say "I saw Black Panther but I guess thats an American thing, wow those Americans sure do suck"

TaintedDeity wrote:Tainted Deity

suffer-cait wrote:One day I'm gun a go visit weeks and discover they're just a computer in a trashcan at an ice cream shop.

tbh i am now mostly impressed that rmsgrey has become such an expert on the history of slavery in the span of about three days (when they first admitted having not learned about it) and is now in a position to educate those of us who have in fact studied this intensively. i commend rmsgrey's dedication to educating themselves, because assuredly to have gotten so learned they have been assiduously studying this history in depth for days to make up the gap in knowledge and didn't just skim a wiki article to find whatever they could cherrypick in order to validate doubling down on their racis... oh wait.

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

rmsgrey wrote:↶Wikipedia has an estimated 15% of slaves dying in the Middle Passage.

"An estimated 15%" isn't inconsistent with "nearly 20%".

Incidentally that same Wikipedia article points out, "During the 18th century,... British slavers carried almost 2.5 million [slaves]."

Also an estimated 75% of all people alive in some form of slavery c. 1800.

Chattel slavery on this scale was not common. Pointing out that "some form of slavery" was common doesn't actually refute that point in any way.

It's as if Angua said that steam locomotives were not common in 1830 and you "countered" by pointing out that an estimated 75% of all people had access to some form of non-human-powered transportation.

Estimates of the economic impact on Great Britain range from "less than 1%" to "at the very most possible, under the most favourable assumptions, and assuming there were absolutely no costs involved, up to 5%" of the economy.

Where are you getting these numbers? You put quote marks around them but the longer quote isn't Googleable.

No one else has been talking about just the money exchanged for the transport and purchase of slaves. Cotton in particular has been brought up a couple of times. How much of Britain's economy was related to the textile industry? How much of its cotton came from US slave plantations?

Between cotton and rubber, it's probably very fair to say the Industrial Revolution wouldn't have happened when and where it did without British slavery.

That's a bit more than a 5% impact on the British economy.

Unless stated otherwise, I do not care whether a statement, by itself, constitutes a persuasive political argument. I care whether it's true.---If this post has math that doesn't work for you, use TeX the World for Firefox or Chrome